End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4]

by Isherwood, E. E.

  More men came out of the trailers as she drove away.

  Sixteen

  Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan

  After his shower, Lieutenant Colonel Phil Stanwick hit the rack, intending to get a solid four hours of sleep. The last thing he remembered was feeling a little dizzy as he stared up at the roof of his room, but he attributed it to running five miles with burritos in his stomach. It went away after a few seconds. Hearty Army gut! he thought.

  He woke up to a sound he instantly recognized as the crump of a distant mortar launch. It was almost below the threshold of hearing, but multiple tours in the hot zone had trained his brain to listen for it, much like the chime of an alarm clock.

  Sneak attack!

  The Taliban were known for lobbing heavy mortar rounds from the backs of pickup trucks, then blending back into the population.

  Phil jumped out of bed, grabbed his sidearm off the table, and rushed out his door. He went into the dark hallway of the officer’s quarters shouting, “Incoming!” over and over as he ran. By the time he reached the end of the hallway, he was pleased to see the others stumble out of their doorways behind him.

  He stepped outside to a beautiful if eerie sight. Several white flares blossomed in the sky over the two runways, dowsing the base in a soft light that made it look a lot like a snowy, moonlit field on Christmas Eve. An instant later, the base’s high-pitched mortar siren spun up and shattered the illusion.

  When he started toward the headquarters building, the anti-mortar Phalanx guns sent thousands of red-hot rounds into the sky in long, thin streams like celestial whips. They fired in five-second bursts, and each one sounded like God ripped at the sky itself. His teeth rattled in his head as more of the guns sought out the falling mortar shells.

  The intense noise shook him to the core because he was a small cog in the massive war machine, but it wasn’t his first time in battle, so he didn’t let it delay him. He waved at his men as they ran by, trying to be the stoic leader they expected.

  Phil ran too but didn’t get far. A man in dark local clothing smashed into him, and they both careened backward and fell to the ground.

  When he looked at the other man, he was ready to chew him a new one, but the Taliban soldier’s AK suggested this wasn’t just a mortar hit-and-run.

  Somehow, the attackers were already inside the core defense of the base.

  Time dropped into slow motion as he and the other man raised their weapons. The sirens, phalanx cannons, and mortar explosions were sounds from another reality. The billions of dollars of defense technology surrounding the base had failed. Everything came down to who could pull a cheap mechanical trigger before the other guy.

  Kill or be killed.

  Search for Nuclear, Astrophysical, and Kronometric Extremes (SNAKE). Red Mesa, Colorado

  “Donald, may I come in?” After getting her job back from General Smith, she went right to her mentor. There were many things she needed to chat about, but mostly she wanted to ensure that he felt better after the excitement of the day before. He was the only person the general hadn’t forced to stay in the auditorium last night.

  When he pulled the door open, she couldn’t conceal her concern.

  “I’m not in my grave yet,” he said with a broad smile.

  “Sorry, Donald. You look, uh, better?”

  “Come in, you kind liar.”

  They sat side by side on the sofa, as they had the day before. Without his scratch pad and pen, Donald looked like a tired old man rather than a tired old scientist. She feared for his health.

  “What is it? What’s wrong with you?” He hadn’t been right since he’d come back from getting more of his heart medication.

  “I think my pacemaker has gone on the fritz. They say you can’t feel a pacemaker inside your body, but I know when my heart isn’t beating correctly. It’s acting like it did before my heart surgery. It’s been like this ever since yesterday when I had those dizzy spells in Castle Rock.”

  “Outside the collider perimeter,” she said almost to herself.

  “Yeah, why?”

  She didn’t know if it meant anything, so she changed the subject and quickly explained what she and General Smith had discovered in the ring. She described the four mysterious boxes and the four beams that linked Red Mesa with CERN. Finally, she mentioned General Smith’s ultimate goal.

  “He wants the beams turned off,” Faith explained. “Not that I blame him. He asked us to work up ideas on what might happen to the system.”

  Donald patted his thigh. “This is all very exciting. You are going to be able to write papers about this for the rest of your career. I wish something this interesting had happened when I was your age.”

  “Not me. I was perfectly happy writing papers about the same old science we always have. Tiny advancements at a safe speed. This new development scares me. The general made it clear that our facility is affecting the whole world. That’s too big a responsibility. I don’t want it. I just want things to go back to the way they were.”

  “Science does its best work when the world depends on it. The atomic age, including ancillary technologies like our dear supercollider, was born out of the destruction of World War II, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Okay, so tell me about this link. What’s your theory?”

  She drew a deep breath. “I believe it’s causing the ripple effect of the blue light. That energy, whatever we want to call it, is interfering with time. How? I have no idea, but it is, based on observations of cause and effect. General Smith told me the GPS satellites in orbit were losing time relative to the surface, and it is getting worse by the hour. He also said that twenty-five of his satellites went dark when one of the scientists put a lead shield on one of the CERN links.”

  “So, there are four links around the outer edge of our snake,” he said as if studiously examining the evidence. “I wonder how they are getting to CERN? Do they all go to the same point?”

  “We only know the beams are pointed there, but they go into the ground and disappear. Obviously, we don’t have anyone on the far end to confirm they come out.”

  “Hmm. Does this general know what happened to our friends in Europe?”

  “Only what he’s seen on international news. I don’t have a phone to try anyone who may have been off-duty at CERN when it exploded. That could really help.” She ticked off a mental note as another reason to ask the general to return their phones.

  “I have read papers on quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation, but most of the bleeding edge in that field concerns the transmission of data, not mass. Is anything being sent through to this end, like a doorway?” He giggled like a schoolboy. “I don’t even know what it would theoretically look like.”

  She smiled. “The light coming from CERN enters the metal boxes on our end. We can’t tell what’s inside them, or even how they’re powered. Someone had to place the boxes there. Someone on my team.”

  He nodded gravely, his face suddenly serious. “Is the beam coming or going, or can’t you tell?”

  “Not by looking at it. I’d need more sensitive equipment.”

  Donald pressed both hands on his knees, as if his back were sore. “I’ll have to think about who has the know-how, but it could just as easily have been a grad student following a floor plan. It didn’t have to be a super-genius placing them.”

  “No, I guess not,” she admitted. It suddenly made perfect sense that the real mastermind would probably never be found. “But who would do such a thing? It’s like a terrorist attack.”

  Donald tapped his leg some more. “If someone wanted to destroy civilization, they sure picked an esoteric way of doing it. I wish they would have left a manual for how they accomplished it, though. I’d die a happy man if I knew someone had figured out time travel.”

  She patted him on the elbow. “You could travel backward in time and be young again.”

  “Perhaps, but Einstein and his successors have been very st
ingy about time travel. Forward, relative to contemporaries, maybe. Backward? I very much doubt it. Maybe the beams of energy affect space-time in such a way that objects only appear to come from the past. It might be as likely they are coming from nearby parallel universes. Who knows?”

  She didn’t expect Donald to have all the answers, but the fact he wasn’t quoting formulas or furiously drawing examples on a napkin suggested he was more tired than he let on.

  “If it is a doorway,” he continued, “then I’d be worried about what happens if we try to close it. If CERN is gone, and we have every reason to think it is, maybe the doorway can never be shut. Or perhaps we’ll blow ourselves up if we try to close our side of the door. Makes me wonder if Geneva tried that exact thing, and that’s what did them in. If a slice of lead can take out satellites, what would a full stop do?”

  Donald put his hand on his chest as if to signify he was done talking. “I would look for other signs, Faith. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that more was affected by the lead bar than just his satellites. That’s only what the general knows about. Much as we did with the news yesterday, you should keep track of what has changed today, in case he wants to stick any more lead bars into the experiment.”

  She would ensure no more blockages would go into the light, but she was already thinking of the possibilities brought out by her short talk with Donald. Even if they found nothing beyond those failed satellites, there was still a whole world suffering under the effects of their broadcast. All the evidence suggested things would continue to get worse if they did nothing.

  Stopping the link to CERN could be dangerous, but leaving it alone might be catastrophic.

  Highway 395, California

  “Do you think we could go back and get my suitcase?” Connie deadpanned a few minutes after the destruction of her car. “I don’t have anything to wear.”

  He’d only known her a short time, so he couldn’t tell if she was serious. However, after the tension they’d shared this morning, and given her manner of asking the question, he was almost certain she was pulling his leg.

  “Sure. Would you like help rolling your car onto its wheels so you can get inside?”

  Both of them chuckled, but it set off a chain reaction of laughter that soon had both of them in tears.

  “Can you imagine what those assholes were thinking when we hit them?” she asked at one point.

  “Yeah!” he guffawed. “You mess with the bull, you get the horns. This rig is 80,000 pounds.”

  The laughter took ten minutes to burn off as Buck drove north from Bridgeport, and they never looked back at the Volkswagen in the ditch, despite Connie’s mock request. Buck also made contact with several truckers on the CB, and they confirmed there were no bikers in pursuit from the motel in Mono Lake. That only added to their sense of joy and relief.

  None of the other drivers could explain why it was snowing like mad in Bridgeport but sunny and hot twenty miles behind. The weird weather forced Buck to do less laughing and more driving.

  “Buck,” Connie said in a soft voice after she’d settled down. “You could have left me in that town. I’m sure I could have found a ride home. Eventually.”

  For a while, Buck continued to stare at the brake lights of the cars ahead as he focused on driving in the snow before he finally looked over to her. This time her humor was gone, so he tried to be serious as well. “Did you want to be left there?”

  She considered it for a few seconds. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to watch over me, but you saw how I was. I couldn’t protect myself. You, on the other hand, seem more than capable, although after all that incredible shooting and driving, I think you get some help from Jiminy Cricket.”

  He laughed. “You believe Jesus can get us through this?”

  “I prayed for my son when he went off to war. You said we won against Saddam. I’ll take it as a sign.”

  He furiously worked through her “watch over me” words. If he let her stay and things got back to normal, it wasn’t unreasonable to think he’d drive her back across America, much as he’d done with Big Mac the previous two weeks. However, he was hesitant to come out and say that because it might sound creepy to her. Some trucker guy picks her up and wants her to ride shotgun for a few weeks…

  Buck opened the door a little.

  “Well, I can always use more divine help, but it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra set of eyes in the truck. Now, don’t get me wrong, Mac is a wonderful lookout, but we’ve had nothing but setbacks when I try to train him to hold a rifle.”

  She tested a chuckle. “So, it would be okay to stick with you for a while?”

  He had to make sure they were both doing it for the right reasons. “The thing is, I’m heading east, not south. I don’t think I can get you home myself. Not right away.”

  “It’s fine. Really. After the motel, I’m more worried about staying alive.”

  Ever since she had climbed aboard, he’d had a calling to help her. Maybe that was what he required to get his truck across the nation and back to Garth, especially if things continued to worsen outside. Garth was the mission. She was willing to help him achieve it. He accepted that at face value. He couldn’t argue with having an extra set of eyes.

  He tried to sound nonchalant. “I’m more than happy to have you on board, knowing where I’m going, but it’s a big country. Are you sure you want to go to the East Coast at a time when things might fall apart? Don’t you have family who will worry about you?”

  “If I’m in the wrong time, it doesn’t matter where I go, since I don’t belong. I’m comfortable in here,” she pointed at her seat, “and don’t like the madness out there.” She gestured expansively through the windshield. “Plus, you risked yourself and your truck for me. Even the police wouldn’t go that far. And I love how you protect this little guy.” She rubbed Mac’s ears with such vigor that his tail started pounding the back of the seat.

  “Well,” Buck said dramatically, “I guess if he likes you, it might be possible to let you stick around a while.”

  She reached over and bopped him on the arm.

  “I like you both, as well. I could sense it the minute I got in. You two are the good guys, and I’d be honored to join your team.”

  That sealed it.

  Ahead, cars shifted partway out of the lanes as they slid on the snow-covered road. Soon, the two-lane highway would require a plow to keep open.

  They had to get beyond the snow before it got that bad. They were still too close to the Sierra Nevada mountains. He was sure that was the reason for the freak storm.

  “I think we’re going to need chains on the tires.” He sighed because they would take a lot of work and time to get on.

  She didn’t sound as disappointed as he was. “How can I help?”

  Seventeen

  Somewhere in New Jersey

  Garth’s sense of direction was good. He managed to cross the bridges and navigate the highways to get him deep into New Jersey, but he fast realized his knowledge of the state was derived from a few trips to the Pine Barrens with his Dad. He didn’t want to pull over to check a map on his phone for fear he’d be attacked again, so he went with his mental map from those earlier journeys.

  “I’m lost,” he said when he finally admitted his internal map had turned blank.

  His clothes were soaked from the rain pouring in through the broken window, and he wasn’t sure how to block it. Maybe a trash bag and duct tape, if he had them, but then he wouldn’t be able to see outside. Any fix would also require a stop, which was still a “no-go,” as his dad would say.

  The two-lane road took him through endless trees, so he figured he was close to where he and Dad went to shoot, but he needed to go farther south. The news said to get out of New York and New Jersey, and his goal was to reach the southernmost tip of Jersey and get out that way.

  He’d been on the road for about an hour.

  Traffic was light in the forest. He had misgivings about taking the cr
owded highway, but he had no idea where the forest road would take him. Maybe it went directly into the path of the radiation. Instead, he kept going south, toward the middle of the state.

  The road wind chilled his wet skin to the bone, despite the summer heat. It had never occurred to him to bring rain gear, although it now seemed obvious he should have dressed for a rainstorm.

  The bright side was, the rain came and went. It was often heavy, but never as torrential as the first few minutes back near home. The people on the radio kept saying Hurricane Audrey was getting close but wasn’t yet there.

  “I can still make it.” He wished again that Sam had come with him. His buddy was probably sitting in front of a fire at some posh resort paid for by his parents. While he didn’t begrudge his friend’s fortune, he did begin to wonder if he should have stuck with Sam after all.

  Being in the Pine Barrens reminded him of Dad, however, and the feel of the gun in his pocket and the rifles in the trunk made him appreciate that he had to man up. Dad would demand no less.

  “Dad, I hope I’m doing right by you.” He kept his phone on the far seat, out of the splashing spray coming through the broken window. Now he leaned over to check if his dad finally left him a message.

  There was nothing new.

  “Dammit!”

  Garth drove for another fifteen minutes, and the number of passing cars dwindled to almost zero. It didn’t matter to him, except he was going in a direction no one else cared to go. That sounded alarms in his mind.

  He considered turning around and trying a different way or pulling into a gas station to ask someone which way to go, but before he made a decision, a green sign put him back on the right path.

  “Eureka!” he shouted. “Garden State Parkway. That’s the ticket.”

  The rain got steadily heavier, which made him think about pulling over in a remote hiding spot, but the echo of the sirens at home kept replaying in his mind. The radiation was coming. He feared that more than any hurricane.